[Itse]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

This is where you lose me. The central tenet of antifa is to suppress any perspectives they deem to be wrong through violence.

But they essentially stand for, "conform to our world view, or we'll beat the #### out of you until you do". That's not to be celebrated. Nor is violence to prevent the people you don't want to speak from speaking.

These people seem to take it as read that it's so important to stop people you don't like from saying the things you don't like, that physical assault is justifiable. I'm just going to go ahead and post this again, because it should act as a full answer to this idiotic political position.

You keep equating rare incidents with the general behavior of a movement and keep making blatantly absurd statements about their supposed "central tenets". I tried to look for something to steelman in your argument, but even at it's best you keep repeating a weak man fallacy. Yes, attacking Alison Strange was wrong, but it's hardly typical. Yes antifa sometimes attacks the wrong people for wrong reasons, but it's really pretty easy to tell how far removed something like the Alison Strange attack is from general antifa propaganda.

(Explained within the tag for those unfamiliar with the concept.)

Spoiler!

One of the cutting-edge advances in fallacy-ology has been the weak man, a terribly-named cousin of the straw man. The straw man is a terrible argument nobody really holds, which was only invented so your side had something easy to defeat. The weak man is a terrible argument that only a few unrepresentative people hold, which was only brought to prominence so your side had something easy to defeat.

For example, “I am a proud atheist and I don’t like religion. Think of the terrible things done by religion, like the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church. They try to disturb the funerals of heroes because they think God hates everybody. But this is horrible. Religious people can’t justify why they do things like this. That’s why I’m proud to be an atheist.”

It’s not a straw man. There really is a Westboro Baptist Church, for some reason. But one still feels like the atheist is making things just a little too easy on himself.

Maybe the problem is that the atheist is indirectly suggesting that Westboro Baptist Church is typical of religion? An implied falsehood?

Then suppose the atheist posts on Tumblr: “I hate religious people who are rabidly certain that the world was created in seven days or that all their enemies will burn in Hell, and try to justify it through ‘faith’. You know, the sort of people who think that the Bible has all the answers and who hate anyone who tries to think for themselves.”

Now there’s practically no implication that these people are typical. So that’s fine, right?

On the other side of the world, a religious person is writing “I hate atheists who think morality is relative, and that this gives them the right to murder however many people stand between them and a world where no one is allowed to believe in God”.

Again, not a straw man. The Soviet Union contained several million of these people. But if you’re an atheist, would you just let this pass?

How about “I hate black thugs who rob people”?

What are the chances a black guy reads that and says “Well, good thing I’m not a thug who robs people, he’ll probably love me”?

I wonder; if we started a contest of comparing the number of times antifa have physically threatened people who were not clearly speaking out for fascism, racism, nazism or anti-queer activity, with the times white supremacists have gone on a ethnically or religiously motivated killing spree with multiple deaths, who could come up with more examples? US only in 2000's, for some limits.

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Yet they have so much in common.

Dogma rooted in a simplistic and emotionally-satisfying narrative that eschews complexity and nuance.

You're saying that we should strive for more complex explanations of why fascism is bad? Besides, if you're looking for the most complex understanding of Nazi ideology and methodology outside the specific academic circles studying the, antifa is a good place to go. Heck, quite a few members of antifa are literally students and academics of relevant fields.

Striving for an idealized state of society where everyone will conform to that dogma.

The antifa ideal is a world which does not tolerate attempts to preach hatred and spread violent behavior towards minorities or attempts to create fascist states (which would mean for example the end of democracy). They do not try to deny supporters of fascism the right to exist, the right to education, the right to healthcare, the right to citizenship, the right to vote etc. They don't go out hunting for fascists at their homes or places of worship. They confront Nazi demonstrations and at times fascist public figures, because they don't think preaching violence towards non-straight non-white non-Christians is speech that needs to be free.

In other words, the goals of these antifa "extremists" are arguably less extreme than for example vote-blocking black people or removing millions of immigrants from the country. What the antifa wants is to deny the very specific right of preaching quite specific speech.

In comparison the Nazi ideal is a fascist state where all ethnic and sexual minorities are gone and political and religious dissidence is completely removed from the society. One nation with one race, one religion, one ideal and only straight cis people.

Do you seriously consider these "dogmas" equal?

For the people who want to jump in here saying blocking any free speech is bad; I would first like you to start by explaining why is shutting down a website preaching a holy war against non-Christians a potentially dangerous precedent of limiting free speech, but shutting down a website preaching holy war against non-Muslims is not? If you're against antifa trying to physically block a Nazi rally because it's confrontational and violent, would you be equally against people going out and trying to physically block the passage of an ISIS support rally from touring the local churches? Because these are the things antifa supports as movement.

Let's remember the context here; White supremacists are the single biggest terrorist threat in the United States right now, according to the FBI. They commit more attacks killing more people than any other group. As an actual threat to Americans living in the country right now, they are literally worse than ISIS. Of course that last part is of no real concern to you if you're a white straight guy, but I think people should have a little understanding of that context when they start getting all huffed up about how angry the antifa seem.

(I said white straight guys, because a lot of these same people are also literally preaching that we should "bring back the patriarchy".)

Dehumanizing some entity (Jews, Communists, Whites, Muslims, Capitalists, etc.) and blaming them for all the world's ills.

Now you're moving firmly into the territory of nonsense. While there certainly are anti-capitalists among antifa, this is not what the belief of antifa. Trying to sneak in "whites" there is just ridiculous. Antifa is a predominantly white movement.

“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.”

“The permanent misfits can find salvation only in a complete separation from the self; and they usually find it by losing themselves in the compact collectivity of a mass movement.”

“All mass movements, irrespective of the doctrine they preach and the program they project, breed fanaticism, enthusiasm, fervent hope, hatred, and intolerance.”

― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

So, antifa and fascism are similar because they are both mass movements?
Mass movements are also things like abolitionism, the Civil Rights Movement, Gay rights movement, suffragettes or all independence movements. Just to name a few.

Do I need to even say "false equivalence" here?